From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features

E-commerce is undergoing an evolution through the adoption of Web 2.0 capabilities to enhance customer participation and achieve greater economic value. This new phenomenon is commonly referred to as social commerce, however it has not yet been fully understood. In addition to the lack of a stable and agreed-upon definition, there is little research on social commerce and no significant research dedicated to the design of social commerce platforms. This study offers literature review to explain the concept of social commerce, tracks its nascent state-of-the-art, and discusses relevant design features as they relate to e-commerce and Web 2.0. We propose a new model and a set of principles for guiding social commerce design. We also apply the model and guidelines to two leading social commerce platforms, Amazon and Starbucks on Facebook. The findings indicate that, for any social commerce website, it is critical to achieve a minimum set of social commerce design features. These design features must cover all the layers of the proposed model, including the individual, conversation, community and commerce levels.     

An estimation for velocity and temperature profiles of nanofluids in fully developed turbulent flow conditions

Theoretically convective heat transfer coefficient depends on velocity and temperature profiles. In this work friction factor and convection coefficient are used in order to compare both profiles for nanofluids and base fluids. For this purpose Al₂O₃/water (due to its present vast experimental study) and carbon nanotube/water (manufactured and examined with our group) are selected. The results show that velocity profile of a nanofluid is similar to the velocity profile of its base fluid. It is proposed that the change of temperature profile for nanofluids compared to the base fluids is the only variable responsible for unpredictable convective heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids using available correlations.     

Process Modelling of Combined Degumming and Bleaching in Palm Oil Refining Using Artificial Neural Network

Combined degumming and bleaching is the first stage of processing in a modern physical refining plant. In the current practice, the amount of phosphoric acid (degumming agent) and bleaching earth (bleaching agent) added during this process is usually fixed within a certain range. There is no system that can estimate the right amount of chemicals to be added in accordance with the quality of crude palm oil (CPO) used. The use of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for an improved operating procedure was explored in this process. A feed forward neural network was designed using a back-propagation training algorithm. The optimum network for the response factor of phosphoric acid and bleaching earth dosages prediction were selected from topologies with the smallest validation error. Comparisons of ANN predicted results with industrial practice were made. It is proven in this study that ANN can be effectively used to determine the phosphoric acid and bleaching earth dosages for the combined degumming and bleaching process. In fact, ANN gives much more precise required dosages depending on the quality of the CPO used as feedstock. Therefore, the combined degumming and bleaching process can be further optimised with savings in cost and time through the use of ANN.     

2,2′-Dithiobis(3-cyano-4,6-dimethylpyridine): A new class of acid corrosion inhibitors for mild steel

The title compound (PyS)₂ has been synthesized and its inhibiting action on the corrosion of mild steel in 1-5 M H₂SO₄ solutions at 35-50 °C has been investigated by polarization resistance (R_p), polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). (PyS)₂ showed excellent performance and its efficiency did not affect either by increasing the acid concentration or rise of temperature. Polarization curves indicated that (PyS)₂ behaves mainly as anodic inhibitor in 1 M H₂SO₄ solutions and as a mixed-type inhibitor in 3 and 5 M H₂SO₄ solutions at different temperatures. Adsorption of (PyS)₂ on the steel surface followed Temkin’s adsorption isotherm with a very high negative value of the free energy of adsorption . The activation parameters of the corrosion process were calculated. EIS showed that the charge transfer controls the corrosion process in the uninhibited and inhibited solutions.     

The role of different parameters on the stability and thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube/water nanofluids

It is obvious that the applicability and efficiency of nanofluids (suspensions contained nanoparticles) are related to their high heat transfer coefficients, especially thermal conductivity. Many parameters affect this property including size, shape and source of nanoparticles, surfactants, power of ultrasonic, time of ultrasonication, elapsed time after ultrasonication, pH, temperature, particle concentration and surfactant concentration. Some of these parameters may have interaction effects. An accepted way for obtaining the optimized condition is based on the design of experiments and statistical analysis. In this paper we investigate the stability and thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube (CNT)/water nanofluids and propose the optimum condition for the production and application of nanofluids. It has been shown that the significant factors on the thermal conductivity and stability are not precisely similar to one another.     

Association of Epstein-Barr virus with pediatric Hodgkin's disease

A bimodal age incidence curve has been shown for Hodgkin's disease (HD). In developing countries, the first age incidence peak occurs in childhood; however, this peak is delayed until young adulthood in developed countries. This difference may reflect differences in the age of exposure to infectious agents involved in the development of HD or may suggest different etiological agents. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of a proportion of HD cases. In this study, EBV association was investigated in a series of 55 pediatric HD cases from three geographical locations (United Kingdom, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia) and the relationship between country, age, sex, histological subtype, and EBV positivity was evaluated. EBV was detected in 38 cases using RNA in situ hybridization, Southern blot, or immunohistochemical analysis. No significant difference in EBV positivity by country, age, or sex was observed; however, children under 10 years of age were particularly likely to be EBV-associated. The difference in EBV association in the pediatric group compared with that observed previously for young adult HD was highly statistically significant (P < 0.0001). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that pediatric and young adult HD have different etiologies and suggest that EBV is likely to be involved in the pathogenesis of pediatric HD.     

Ion Temperature Effect on Bohm Criterion for Magnetized Plasma Sheath

A two-fluid model has been used to study the characteristics of the plasma sheath in the presence of an external magnetic field and by taking into account both the ion temperature and the ion-neutral collision force. The model is solved numerically and sheath characteristics are obtained. The dependence of the Bohm magnetized sheath criterion to ion temperature is examined. Then it is concluded that the ion temperature has significant effects on the sheath characteristics such as ion velocity, particles densities and electric potential.     

Studies of jasmine wax: II. Use of the wax fractions in producing enriched cleansing cream and as a fixative for soap perfumes

The primary alcohols, ketones, aldehydes and part of the wax esters were used as fixatives for the odor in soap perfume. Statistical analysis proved the sutiability of this fraction for this purpose. The hydrocarbons and the free fatty acid fractions were used to replace carnauba wax in the production of an enriched cleansing cream. The triangle panel test proved that this fraction could replace carnauba wax without affecting the quality of that type of cleansing cream.     

Effect of PgTPhPBr on the electrochemical and corrosion behaviour of 304 stainless steel in H2SO4 solution

Weight-loss, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were used to study the inhibition of 304 stainless steel corrosion in 1 M H₂SO₄ at 50 °C by propargyltriphenylphosphonium bromide (PgTPhPBr). The inhibiting effects of propyltriphenylphosphonium bromide (PrTPhPBr) and propargyl alcohol (PA) were also studied for the sake of comparison. For the investigated compounds, Tafel extrapolation in the cathodic region gave a corrosion inhibition efficiency of 98% at 1 × 10^–3 M. Adsorption of both PgTPhPBr and PA was found to follow Frumkin's isotherm while adsorption of PrTPhPBr obeys that of Temkin. In the anodic domain, PgTPhPBr acted as a good passivator. The impedance spectra recorded at the corrosion potential (E _cor) revealed that the charge transfer process in the inhibited and uninhibited states controls corrosion of 304 stainless steel.     

Liquid-liquid extraction of metal ions,DFT and TD-DFT analysis for some pyrane derivatives with high selectivity for Fe(II) and Pb(II)

Liquid-liquid extraction of metal ions using pyrane derivatives was studied. Fe²⁺, Zn²⁺, Cu²⁺, Co²⁺, Cd²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Pb²⁺ were extracted from the aqueous phase into the organic phase and the extractability for each metal was determined by atomic absorption. Interestingly, a competitive extraction was also investigated and then examined at different pH in order to explore the effect of the different substituent groups on metal extraction. We found high selectivity towards Fe²⁺ (91.8%) and Pb²⁺ (90.7%). In addition, geometry optimizations of the ground and excited-states of the selective ligands in order to get better insight into the geometry and the electronic structure were carried out by DFT and TD-DFT calculations.